


Stay

by Smapdi



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smapdi/pseuds/Smapdi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny is a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GloriaGilbertPatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaGilbertPatch/gifts), [Anna__S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna__S/gifts).



> I haven't written anything in weeks so this was weird. It was supposed to be a fill for a kinkmeme prompt. It's a spectacular failure.  
> This was the prompt:  
> Pre-Desert, Danny doing his best to get over this crush or whatever he thinks he has on Mindy by sleeping with other people. Actually, post Be-Cool would work too, or post-divorce. Basically, I want a sad, slutty!Danny.

It was the first thing he did after he left Christina.

Not the actual first thing - he packed a bag and found a hotel and drank, a lot. But it was the first act of freedom, the first attempt to soothe the pain. Of course it failed, but that didn't mean he didn't keep trying.

He was still a married man, so the first one, a sleepy eyed brunette at the hotel bar, that one was the biggest hurdle, the most deserving of penance. He hadn't planned it - he was just there for a drink, but she came on strong, and she was Not Christina. He must have looked vulnerable, and Danny Castellano does not do vulnerable well.

But there were things he did do well, as the brunette found out - he didn't even remember her name in the morning, but he remembered how she tasted.

He found a place in the city, a cozy condo that was ridiculously expensive, but it was worth it to sleep in a fresh bed, to look at a room untainted by her memory. He kept it to himself, a private haven, but he still couldn't avoid the ghosts. He threw himself into his work, but in his free time, he would find himself at a club, or a bar, and someone would catch his eye, and he would go home with her.

Never to his place. He didn't want to deal with the awkward morning afters, wanting them to leave but not quite able to say it, so he figured it would be easier if he was the one who left. He'd go to confession and beg forgiveness for his sins, but he'd turn right around and commit them again. It was within the letter of the law but he had long ago given up the spirit.

Still, he found ways to justify his behavior. He never led a woman on. He was always safe, and he always made sure she came, first, and often more than once. He didn't mention that to the priest.

On the morning of his thirty-fifth birthday, Danny Castellano was served with divorce papers. He filed them away and planned to get to them later. He had already managed to get an annulment, so as far as he was concerned, he was already a free man.

He looked in the mirror that day and didn't like what he saw. That was the end of the hookups.

Not the end, end, though. He still couldn't bring himself to go on dates, because he didn't want a relationship, not yet. Maybe not ever. But he got lonely, and missed the connection, so occasionally he succumbed to the lure of a siren's call.

He tried to keep his private life private. It used to be easier. Now, it seemed like whenever he turned around, she was there, prying. Mindy. She was a thorn in his side from the day he met her, and now they worked together. She had no sense of propriety, and she did not take a hint, not at all. When he walked away, she followed, like a needy golden retriever.

"Are you dating anyone, Danny? I should fix you up, Danny. Tell me about your ex-wife, Danny." Maybe she was more like a parrot than a dog, nagging him, poking him, trying so hard to break through the walls he had carefully constructed.

"I saw you leave the club with that girl, Danny. The one you were macking on by the bar. Public displays of affection, how very unlike Danny Castellano! So, what happened with her?"

He wasn't about to tell her the details, but a small part of him wanted to, just to see her reaction. But no, he wouldn't tell her how he stroked his fingers into her in the backseat of the cab, how he slid down her panties as she braced herself on her couch, how she wrapped her thighs around his ears as he worked her with his tongue. And he certainly wouldn't tell her how he dressed in the dark and slunk out, how he tossed the napkin with her phone number, how he made the earliest morning confession.

He swore that would be the last time.

He met Jillian in the hospital, and she was young and sweet, and he took the plunge. They dated for a while, but she could feel it, his distance, his reluctance, and she called it. He forced himself to care more than he really did.

Mindy clucked and flapped at him while she went on with her own string of terrible relationships, and that alone almost made him feel better, because it meant he wasn't the only loser. He just didn't like to see her sad.

He threw his hat into the relationship ring again, this time with one of Mindy's friends, and it ended terribly, as he expected. He was done. He didn't need a girlfriend.

He certainly didn't need a wife.

And yet she was back, and somehow he couldn't fight it off. Christina glided back into his life like an snake, and she wrapped herself around him and suffocated him, and he just... let her. It wasn't better than being alone, but he convinced himself it was, and that they could be happy. He ignored the looks from Mindy, sometimes quizzical, sometimes sympathetic.

He gave her the same ones sometimes. He couldn't quite figure her out, her and that pastor. She said she loved him, she broke up with him. She got back with him, she went to Haiti with him.

Danny missed her.

It wasn't long after her return that Christina checked out again. She made a scene, she humiliated him, and he knew it was his fault. He was never really there. If he was honest, he wasn't there the first time either.

And then he slipped back into the old, bad habits. He went home with a tall drink of water after the art show, the final act of revenge from Christina. She was like a panther, stripping him naked while she kept most of her clothes on, and he felt a bit like a piece of meat. But for a few minutes he was okay with that, when she straddled him and enveloped him and made him come.

When he got home, he wondered if the day will arrive that he didn't even find joy in that.

It was loneliness, he decided, when the redhead from his building flirted with him and he flirted back. He broke the rules for the first time when she knocked on his door and smiled beguilingly. Yeah, she was a little bit crazy, and and he was a little less than honest, but she filled a need. She was warm and willing, and up for anything - he found her a bit boring, and even trying a little kinky stuff didn't make him any more interested, so he just stopped responding to her texts and calls and hoped she would get the hint.

And she almost did, until he ran into her in the lobby. Mindy was with him, and as she was so fond of doing, she spun an elaborate tale about a fictional relationship, and it was so vivid that it made him almost think it was real.

That, and the way his stomach knotted when he held her, and the way his pulse sped up when she laid her head against his chest.

And that was when Danny Castellano realized he was good and truly fucked.

So he did the only thing he knew how to do, and fled. He found an outlet for the flood of feelings that threatened to submerge him. She was tall and blonde and cold, so much like Christina it was eerie, and they fucked on a desk while he fought the images in his head of someone who was unlike her in every way. He bent Priscilla over and thrust into her hard and rough and she cursed at him as she came.

It didn't work. Mindy consumed him like a fire.

Slowly the veil of protection slipped, and he danced for her, and watched the way her eyes glowed when he held her, but he couldn't convince himself it was really him that she wanted. So he watched her kiss another in the snow and cursed himself this time.

He could be her friend. He could help her reach her goals and get her man and be happy, even if he knew he would never be, until the day he couldn't anymore. But as soon as he had her in his arms, it was terrifying. There were only two ways it could end, in forever or in nevermore, and he just couldn't foresee forever. So he chose the latter and slunk out into the night.

He knew it was a mistake before he hit the ground floor. But Danny Castellano didn't acknowledge mistakes, he just walked away from them. Confession is good for the soul. Ditsy redheads are not, but he just couldn't stop making mistakes. He was on a roll.

Sally was easy, where Mindy was trying. She was easy in other ways too - he just had to call and she was at his place and in his bed before they even went out. No five dates, no two thousand dollars, and he had from her what Mindy had held back. It was meaningless.

He finally answered that lingering question, though. There was no joy in what he had with Sally, not when his heart was so firmly torn from his chest. Every time he touched her skin, he thought of Mindy's silky flesh; when he buried his face in her hair, it was Mindy's scent that flared in his nostrils.

And that was when Danny realized that living without Mindy wasn't really living at all. He swore to himself if she let him, he wouldn't ruin it. He couldn't.

She dragged him through the front door of his apartment, one hand in his front pocket, her lips moving on his. He couldn't believe it was really happening, she was really back. She was really his.

He stopped her in the doorway of his bedroom. This time it was him who wanted to wait, because suddenly the fear was back. He wanted her too much. But Mindy was having none of that. Her fingers undid his buttons, unbuckled his belt, roamed over him, and he responded in kind. Her body welcomed him home.

As their sweat slick bodies cooled, as she nuzzled his neck and murmured things he couldn't quite make out, he slowly relaxed. He didn't want to leave, and he didn't want her to leave. Not now, not in the morning. Not ever.

**Author's Note:**

> So I read the prompt and tried to think of ways someone could write it without smut and then basically it kind of warped from there. I really couldn't fit anything smutty into it. These angst-kink freaks have warped my mind.


End file.
